County to examine housing problem

County plans to re-chart a course for Route 1 development could include incentives to build student housing, but after a similar effort five years ago failed to draw the interest county and city officials expected, student leaders are clamoring for input.

Planning officials laid out detailed guidelines aimed at shepherding in new retail, housing and office space along the three-mile-long College Park corridor in 2002, but with only a few developments on the books, city and county officials say the plans could use another look. Chief among the officials' concern is student housing: Despite a 900-bed student housing complex opened in 2005, demand for off-campus housing has proved insatiable.

This year, however, there's a new sense of urgency. A flood of more than 600 students now scrambling for shelter downtown after getting the boot from Resident Life has strained the city's housing stock. That's caused the development plan to come under greater scrutiny from student leaders, who blamed the county for abusing its zoning authority at a Student Government Association rally yesterday.

"Right now we have caught a lot of people's attention about the housing issue," SGA President Emma Simson said in an interview. "It's time to really use this attention to get a lot of changes we need to ensure that there is a large enough supply so that students are able to afford housing."

Since the development plans were announced five years ago, the city has had some help reevaluating the approach to city development. The Environmental Protection Agency commissioned a team of experts to examine the city's development woes, and in January 2006 a report was issued that recommended the city "place more student housing in the corridor."

"Stakeholders were unanimous in their desire to see less student housing in existing neighborhoods," the report said. "Supporting the development of more student housing in the US Route 1 corridor would serve this goal, and several others."

More students along Route 1 would help foster activity around retail developments and would reduce traffic by decreasing the number of student commuters, the experts said. They criticized "recent student residential developments," however, and encouraged the city to look to other universities that have achieved a "balance between transportation, housing, retail and open space."

The "Route 1 Sector Plan," as officials refer to the 2002 course of development, laid out a vision of what should be built in the city, but experts wrote last year that "it is now clear that the great place they expected is not being built." City officials have cited vague details in the plan for producing inconsistent proposals.

Although the county budget officers have yet to approve the Route 1 re-evaluation process, District 3 County Councilman Eric Olson said he expects the process to begin this summer.

"It's clear the Route 1 Sector Plan isn't entirely working," Olson said. "We need to make sure that it's consistent with the needs of the community."

When officials reexamine the plan, SGA President Emma Simson said she hoped student leaders could build on the momentum from their protests to emphasize rental housing needs. But it's still unclear how the county can create incentives to promote the community's housing needs.

Simson proposes lifting a limit on the density of housing, possibly allowing developers to house more students in a given apartment and opening the door for more high-rise apartments. Although the University View partly negotiated around the code's recommendation for height when it opened last year, Simson said formally cutting the provision could encourage similar projects.

Senior environmental science and policy major David Daddio, editor of the city development blog RethinkCollegePark.net, suggested lowering the requirement on the number of parking spaces developers need to construct per unit in an apartment might also lure potential developers. Parking often incurs high costs that are unnecessary in student housing projects where residents frequently don't own cars, he said.

Bob Catlin, a city councilman who represents the Berwyn neighborhood, added that a similar change to the Ithaca, N.Y. city code solved a shortage at Cornell University about ten years ago similar to the one this university currently faces .

District 1 County Councilman Tom Dernoga, who represents North College Park, among other areas, said he'd be open to having students involved in reevaluating the sector plan.

"It will be critical for the university and the student body to work with the city and the county to address housing and transportation issues that will arise from all this development," he said in an e-mail.

Dernoga's support would be valuable because the county has final authority on approving all development projects, and Simson said brokering a better relationship with county council members as they work on the sector plan would prove vital as they try to attract developers.

"What we're asking is that the county council also recognize the needs and ensure that proposals be dealt with in a timely fashion," she said.